IN A NUTSHELL: Cal State Fullerton (9-8, 3-5) is reeling from a 3-game losing streak that has taken them out of the Big West Conference championship picture. The Titans had not lost consecutive games this season prior to an overtime loss at home to Long Beach State and then back-to-back losses to frontrunning UC Irvine. Last year's team lost 3 games in a row to fall to 8-7 overall before finishing the season with a remarkable 13-4 run that took it three games into the post-season NIT.

"RADIO": All ROAD Big West Conference games plus Saturday afternoon's game at UC Davis can be heard on KSPA (1510 AM) with Justin Alderson calling the action. ALL Titan games can be heard live on the internet on computers with sound cards. Listeners may access the CSF Athletics home page at www.fullertontitans.com and follow the links.

ABOUT THE AGGIES: UC Davis takes a 5-13 record and a 3-game losing streak of its own into a Thursday night home game vs. UC Riverside. But the Aggies have a home win over Stanford to brag about and they were the last team to beat UC Irvine, in the Bren Center no less. They have a substantially different lineup than the one Fullerton swept last year with veterans Phil Rasmussen (11.6 ppg, 6.1 rpg) and Rommel Marentez (11.6 ppg, 3.6 rpg) leading the charge.

THE COACH: Bob Burton is 41-36 in his third year at Cal State Fullerton and career. At .532, Burton has the second best winning percentage of any Titans' head coach, trailing only Bobby Dye (109-78, .583). He is 2-0 vs. UC Davis, 1-0 in the Pavilion.

SERIES HISTORY: Fullerton leads the all-time series, 3-0. The teams originally met in 1961-62 when CSF was known as Orange County State and played at the NAIA level. The Titans swept last year's series, winning 89-61 in Titan Gym and coming from behind at the half to win at The Pavilion, 79-55.

BENCH ERUPTS: Fullerton's reserves had scored only 6 points total in the last two home games before erupting for 46 of the team's 68 points at UC Irvine in Wednesday night's loss.

HOWEVER, THE AILING BROWNS STRUGGLED: Junior Bobby (18.1 pg) and senior Jamaal (17.1 ppg) have scored 45 percent of the Titans' points this year and ranked Nos. 2 & 3 in the Big West Conference in scoring as of Jan. 22. But Bobby (ankle) had only 7 points and Jamaal (back spasms) only 4 points after missing two practices prior to Wednesday's game at UC Irvine.

ALL EYES ON BOBBY: The condition of junior point guard Bobby Brown's left ankle helped UCI remain unbeaten in the Big West. He injured it in overtime vs. Long Beach State on Thursday night and had to come out of the game. It affected his two free throw attempts with 1.9 seconds to go and then limited his mobility Saturday when he took only 8 shots on his way to 11 points and was responsible in part for Aaron Fitzgerald's 28-point explosion for UC Irvine. He sat out the last 12 minutes. He was healthier for Wednesday night's rematch but the lack of practice time showed as he missed his first 9 shots and played "only" 31 minutes. He is the 18th member of the Titans' 1,000-point club and currently ranks No. 10 at 1,214. At No. 9 with 1,240 points is Keith Anderson (1975-79). Bobby has 310 career assists and needs 29 more to crack the all-time Titan top five. At Cal State Northridge on Jan. 7 he passed Chris Dade to rank No. 1 in Titan career 3-point field goals and now has 202. He made the all-tournament team at both USF and FIU.

JAMAAL THE INSIDE FORCE: Senior Jamaal Brown sat out almost the entire second half at UCI on Wednesday night due to back problems after scoring only 4 points with 3 rebounds. He posted his third 30-point game of the year with 31 vs. Long Beach State on Jan. 19, making 13 of 16 shots. In December he became only the third Titan (Leon Wood and Cedric Ceballos) to post back-to-back 30-point games with 30 vs. Chicago State and 36 at USF on Dec. 9 & 10. His 36-point one-game effort is topped only by Richard Morton's Div. I school record of 38 (vs. UC Irvine, 1/7/88). Ironically, Morton, currently the head coach of the San Francisco Pilots ABA team, was in attendance that night. Brown has had only four double-doubles (30 points, 13 rebounds vs. Chicago State; 13 points, 12 rebounds at Florida International; 16 points, 11 rebounds at CSU Northridge and 31 points and 10 boards vs. Long Beach State) but would be AVERAGING a double-double with 25 more total rebounds. He had eight double-doubles last year. If you take away his "holiday" shooting slump (combined 14-for-48 vs. UTSA, FIU and Cal Poly on Dec. 27-Jan. 2), he would be shooting .567 (102-for-180) from the floor. As it is, his .509 figure is in the top five in the Big West Conference. He has the best percentage on the team from behind the 3-point line at .462 (12 of 26) and has made 4-of-7 attempts in the last three games.

BURNS BECOMES KEY: Junior Justin Burns has become probably the key Titan performer with the Browns usually starring. Burns is easily the most improved Titan and they need him to stay out of foul trouble due to the lack of consistent play by the big men off the bench. His absence due to foul trouble was critical in the losses at USF, vs. Cal Poly and at Pacific. He is tied for sixth in the Big West in rebounding at 6.2 per game. He had the best game of his career at Cal State Northridge on Jan. 7, scoring a career-high 18 points and matching his rebounding best with 10. He nearly matched it at UC Riverside on Saturday with 17 points and 10 rebounds. At CSUN he attempted 20 free throws (making 12) to come up only two shy of the CSF school record of 22 attempts by Leon Wood on Nov. 19, 1981, vs. Texas-Arlington. He appeared to be the hero vs. Long Beach State with an offensive rebound and putback for a 1-point lead with 15 seconds to play in overtime.

Jermaine Harper: The senior guard saw a string of six solid games end with a 1-for-5, 2-point effort at UC Irvine on Wednesday night. In the previous 6 games he was 34-for-61 (.557) from the floor including 23-of-43 (.535) from the 3-point line to average 16.0 points. In the five games before that he was only 3-for-22 from behind the arc. In the first 10 games of the season he was 15-for-60 from the floor and 9-of-44 from trey-land. He did not score in 21 minutes in the game vs. Cal Poly. In his Titan career he has had six games of 20 or more points and 16 of 4 points or less. Last year he made 70 of 191 treys (.366 percentage) and tied for fifth most in a season by a Titan. This season he is shooting .360 and is on pace to make about 55. He is on the verge of breaking into the Titans' career top ten with 102 makes and 280 attempts, both figures currently placing him eleventh.

Vershan Cottrell: The other senior off guard continues to play above his 2004-05 level. He was the Titans' leading scorer (15 points) at Kansas State and he made all 5 shots in the first half vs. Cal Poly on his way to 12 points. At UC Riverside he had 12 points (all in the first half) along with career highs of 8 rebounds and 6 assists. Last year he averaged roughly 2 points and 1 rebound but this year is at 5.3 points and 3.3 rebounds and has started 14 times.

BATTLIN' CURTIS: Center Curtis Battles, who has lost 75 pounds in the last 12 months, has worked his way into the playing rotation over the past five games, contributing 7 points and 12 rebounds in a total of 34 minutes. He did not play a single minute in the previous fives games.

ROBINSON BREAKS SLUMP: Sophomore Frank Robinson had been the key Titan off the bench before earning a starter's role at Pacific. Since then, his contributions had diminished with only 9 points in the next 3 games. But he led the team on Wednesday with 17 points and had 4 rebounds and 3 steals. He is the Titans' No. 3 scorer at 9.9 points per game and the No. 3 rebounder at 4.8 per game. Twice he has scored 20 points -- vs. Hope and at CSUN. In the Florida International Tournament, he had 9 steals in the two games and made the all-tournament team.

John Clemmons: The third senior guard has emerged as much more than Bobby Brown's caddy. He has provided a consistent defensive spark off the bench at point guard and has played substantial minutes with Brown moving to off guard. Clemmons had a career-high 10 points vs. UCSB including a career-best two 3-point field goals (in 2 tries) and matched those numbers at UCI on Wednesday. His assist/turnover ratio (44/17) is outstanding at 2.59-to-1 (the Big West leader is CSUN's Bakari Altheimer at 2.09) but Clemmons needs to have 3 assists per game to qualify for the conference leader board and currently he is averaging only 2.75. He had 7 assists and no turnovers in 14 minutes vs. Long Beach State and 4 assists and 1 turnover in 15 minutes vs. UC Irvine on Jan. 21.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Fullerton played only 12 of its 32 games last year in Titan Gym and this year's schedule shows another dozen games at home and at least 16 on the road. The Titans did not have a home game between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, making trips to South Dakota/Kansas, San Francisco, San Jose and Miami. In a 46-day span, they were on the road for at least part of 23 days. Going back to last season, the Titans are 17-14 in their last 31 games away from Titan Gym. This year they are 6-5 away from Titan Gym, where they are 3-3.

WESTCHESTER CONNECTION: Assistant Coach Marlon Morton joined the Titans' staff this year after a long career assisting at Westchester High School, one of California's most successful prep basketball programs in recent times. He sees a lot of familiar faces since Bobby Brown, John Clemmons, Jerard Moret and redshirts Scott Cutley and Jarrel Lake all played for the Comets.

LOOKING BACK: Last year's Titans team accomplished a remarkable number of positive statistics and records, most notably tying for the second most victories in a Div. I season (21 vs. 23 in 1977-78 and 21 in 1982-83) and posting only the third and fourth post-season (NIT) wins in school history to complete the first winning season since 1992-93.

HALFTIME INDICATORS: Fullerton is 6-5 after leading at the half, 1-0 when tied and 2-3 when trailing. The Titans have outscored the competition in first halves, 640-541, but have been outscored by 51 points in the second halves and by 3 points in overtime.

SPEAKING OF OVERTIME: Coach Bob Burton's first Titan team was 0-4 in overtime and last year's team was 3-0. This year's team is 0-2 and each time the opponent forced overtime with a last-second 3-pointer.

THREE IS A BAD NUMBER: Fullerton opponents are having some sensational games with the 3-point basket. USF's Dommanic Ingerson made 6 of 7 in the final 11 minutes to lead a Don overtime win, Cal Poly's Dawin Whiten made 6 of 9 to lead a Mustang victory in the Big West opener, CSUN's Mike Efevberha made 8 of his last 9 tries (8 of 11 overall) in a narrow Fullerton win, UCR's Dedrick Bates (1 of 16 on the season) made 4 of 4 and then Long Beach State set a school record by making 14 in 34 attempts.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?: Seven players on last year's team are no longer on the roster. Ralphy Holmes graduated in August and is playing in the CBA with the Yakama team. Yaphett King is attempting to play professionally in a foreign country. Hardy Asprilla remains in school and is assisting the players with academics while providing an experienced and inspirational voice from near the bench. Derek Quinet had two years of eligibility remaining but decided to focus on his classroom work this year. Danny Lambert quit the team in October and redshirt Adam Tancredi quit on Dec. 11. Drew Awad passed away on Dec. 26 after battling for more than a year against a reoccurrence of leukemia.

GO EAST YOUNG MEN: Cal State Fullerton in December played on the East Coast for the third time in 14 months after making only one appearance there in the previous 30 years (at Providence, Connecticut and Richmond in 1974-75). The Titans opened last season at a tournament at Central Connecticut State in New Britain and ended it with a post-season NIT game at Georgetown in the nation's capital.